The Perfect Voice
ePaper
TOP NEWS
Decoding Crime Through Language Sour Milk The Pluralism Puzzle From Kerala to City Hall Lords of Kalinjar: The Chandellas and the Struggle for Central India Satej Patil plans march over Gokul tussle BMC demolishes 13 per cent of illegal structures Kaleidoscope Stepping Back Jaishankar’s Kautilyan Moment Lessons in Cultural Diplomacy Justice Denied, A Life Lost A Ph.D. Without Walls, But With Guardrails Cabinet clears 20% RTO fine amnesty scheme Growers, mills must fight Centre together Ayushmann Khurrana alleges extortion call from Bishnoi Gang Cabinet amends Co-Operative Act to capture ‘Gokul’ Kaleidoscope Fiscal Leakage from Climate Risk India’s Demographic Faultlines and Security Imperatives Trump’s Retreat The Sovereignty Trap Making Room for Those Who Choose to Stay In Gokul power tussle sparks Mahayuti rift Kaleidoscope PM Modi inaugurates Pune’s 23-km Pink Metro Delayed Promise Gaza and the Burden of a Troubled History The Rooftop Divide Between the Written Word and the Moving Image Climate change triggers 8,830 preterm births Kaleidoscope The Farmer Is the Frontline Perennial Theatre Policing in a Changing World: Vigilance, Trust and Technology The Longitude of Self-Reliance Does Democracy Deserve Its Citizens? A New High in Warfare The Diplomat as Gambler: A.J.P. Taylor and the Fall of Old Europe Dupleix’s Triumph, Clive’s Inheritance: Adyar and the Making of Empire Sanjay Gupta, Bollywood’s master of stylish action Rethinking the Tax Audit Kaleidoscope The Price of a Classroom Seat Bridging the Counsellor Gap The Missing Measure in India’s Growth Story Pulp Fiction A New Trade Equation A Setback for the BJP in Western Maharashtra The Crucible of Rebirth: Charles Oman and The Dark Ages

Sour Milk

Sour Milk
Created By Correspondent
Published On:

The raging battle over the Kolhapur -based Gokul milk cooperative, a Rs. 3,960-crore dairy enterprise based in Kolhapur, has laid bare the jockeying for political influence and financial patronage that typically pervades the politics of rural Maharashtra.

Ostensibly a cooperative owned by milk producers, Gokul has always been a formidable network of money, influence and electoral mobilisation.
 
 Its significance has extended well beyond dairy production. Maharashtra’s cooperative economy operates through an interconnected network of district cooperative banks, sugar factories, dairies and educational institutions. Banks extend credit to farmers, who supply milk or sugarcane to cooperative processing units. Loan repayments are often deducted directly from their payments and routed back to the banks. Those who control these institutions consequently command considerable economic influence over rural communities.
 
The system owes much of its political architecture to NCP founder Sharad Pawar, who consolidated a formidable network of cooperative institutions across western Maharashtra in the 1970s and 80s, encouraging loyal regional leaders to establish and manage sugar factories, dairies, banks and educational trusts. These institutions provided employment, credit, education and political patronage. A farmer could sell milk to one institution, borrow from another and send his children to a college controlled by the same political establishment. Challenging this arrangement meant taking on an entire ecosystem, not merely an individual politician.
 
This structure is now under strain. The splits in the NCP and Shiv Sena have fractured established political loyalties, turning cooperative institutions into battlegrounds for rival factions. District cooperative bank boards have now become vulnerable to defections and factional manoeuvring. 
 
The Gokul confrontation is the latest manifestation of this churn. In the board elections last month, a Congress-led panel secured 13 of the 25 seats, defeating the Mahayuti, which won 12. The state government subsequently cleared an ordinance permitting four government-nominated members, with voting rights, on the boards of large cooperative institutions. 
 
The opposition, led by Congress leader Satej Patil, has accused the government of overturning the electoral verdict. Rahul Gandhi has described the move as an adulteration of the mandate. Yet the indignation carries its own irony. Political parties that have long exploited cooperative institutions to consolidate their rural strongholds are now invoking democratic principles when the same machinery threatens their control. 
 
The farmer, meanwhile, remains a convenient prop in a contest between political establishments.
 
The real cost of this power struggle is borne by milk producers. Procurement prices for cow milk reportedly remain as low as Rs. 24-27 per litre, even as urban consumers pay substantially more. Recent sugarcane farmers’ protests and highway blockades further disrupted supplies, leaving an estimated 7.5 lakh litres of Gokul milk stranded en route to Mumbai and Pune. 
 
Maharashtra’s cooperative movement once promised farmers a share in prosperity. Regrettably, its political custodians appear more interested in deciding who gets to milk the system.
Tags: Maharashtra Politics Gokul cooperative dairy

Related Posts

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction

Gokul power tussle sparks Mahayuti rift

Gokul power tussle sparks Mahayuti rift

Satej Patil plans march over Gokul tussle

Satej Patil plans march over Gokul tussle

Latest News

Decoding Crime Through Language
Decoding Crime Through Language
Sour Milk
Sour Milk
The Pluralism Puzzle
The Pluralism Puzzle
From Kerala to City Hall
From Kerala to City Hall
Lords of Kalinjar: The Chandellas and the Struggle for Central India
Lords of Kalinjar: The Chandellas and the Struggle for Central India